Form and Substance
by PikaCheeka
Summary: A discussion on tact over a glass of absinthe. It really doesn't need any more description than that. Isaak POV. Minor IxD.


(062107)

I'm really lazy about posting my TB fic. Ah, well. Rated PG for mild violence, suggestive behavior, and absinthe, which is illegal at least in America. Isaak POV (again), minor Isaak x Dietrich (again). Dietrich is canonically alcohol-intolerant, so this is a mindless little irony ditty on that idea. I don't pretend to be an absinthe expert. And don't mind the fact that all TB IxD fics have X and Y names.

Form and Substance

By PikaCheeka

Dietrich, don't drink that.

I didn't even realize I had said the words aloud until he looked at me out of the corner of his eye and smiled innocently. He waited until he had my full attention before placing the sugar cube on the spoon and reaching for the glass of water. "Why not?" he licked the granules off of his forefinger.

"You know you can't drink alcohol."

He grunted in response and proceeded to pour the water over the spoon.

"It's too strong for you."

"I'm adding water."

I wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of telling him most absinthe drinkers did. He wanted an argument. I ignored him. "You're going to vomit and then faint. Just like last time."

"Last time you took me to your room and." He didn't finish. He made no attempt to, didn't even fade out. The sugar had disintegrated and he slowly lifted the spoon to his lips. No tact. No form. His shirt collar was unbuttoned, his tie loose. His pants were low and he was barefoot, one leg wrapped around the chair leg, the other foot perched on the seat.

"And." I snorted. I didn't like the way he slowly sucked on the spoon, eyes half-closed, lashes brushing his cheeks, smiling absently.

"And I fell asleep." He laughed suddenly, delighted.

I leaned back and sighed. He had said it all to provoke me. I fell for it. I usually did with Dietrich. Nothing had happened that night, nothing past a few well-placed hands and my tongue crushing down on his small, yielding mouth. He had tasted like the sour alcohol he had just thrown up but it hadn't mattered to me at the time, as I was even more drunk than he was.

"Did it upset you?"

"What are you talking about?" I snapped.

"That I fell asleep?" he leaned over the counter towards me, his drink untouched. "Do you wish we had sex?"

The bluntness of it startled me more than the suggestion, but that was Dietrich, after all, and I really had no right to be surprised. Even so, I almost snorted my wine out. Bad form. "Some questions should never be answered."

"But they can be asked?" The first art he ever mastered was seduction. Unnaturally, impossibly, he had seduced me, had even enraptured Cain, when he was only a child of seven, and now thirteen years along it was unbearable. He was a man now. Never mind that I raised him as my son, my prodigy.

"Drink your absinthe." And stop speaking.

"Delighted to."

He had it downed in seconds, one swallow. The way one drinks it neat, not mixed. His sheer lack of form, his disregard for ritual, disgusted me. And now he would spend the next hour being sick and likely crying. It wouldn't take long to set in. I had five minutes, maybe ten.

"I shouldn't have said that." I finally spoke.

"Nn." He stood up and slid over to me, hands on my shoulders, leaning forward.

"If you are sick on me I will write you up for insubordination."

"What if I made love to you?" his eyes were already too-bright, wild, even for him. I felt his fingers convulse against me, tightening, provoking. And my own fingers twitched, but I resisted. I managed to resist the languid porcelain beauty now pushing himself into my lap, despite the fact that I could already feel his softly-concealed musculature, his tight stomach and his smooth thighs.

"It's hardly any better." I reached for my wineglass, careful not to unseat him. Dumping him onto the floor would have been an easy solution, but one that would likely result into him screeching and attacking me. Life was all sex and violence when he was drunk; the only break came when he was ill. It was frightening, in a way, for if he ever ran into Cain on such a rampage he was bound to be killed.

"Seduce me." His lips brushed my throat and I stiffened under him, causing him to make a soft noise of satisfaction and shudder against me. Dietrich. I had dreamed of him for over a decade now. Why did I still resist his advances? He was no longer a child. I ignored him and emptied the glass, then moved to return it.

It never made it to the table. And the shattering glow of broken glass wasn't heard until several seconds after it had silenced. It wasn't a favorite, I thought dully, and that was all that mattered. Never mind the mess. Dietrich's pout was all that mattered now, hungry and desperate. I bit him finally and he pulled back, flushed and smiling, his eyes completely mad.

"Isaak?"

"What?" My hand was now around his backside, hooked over the top of his trousers. Waiting.

"No form." He purred and promptly slipped off my lap.

Less than a minute later I heard him in the bathroom retching.

I sighed at nothing and took a long drag from my cigarillo before I laughed quietly. "Oh, really?"


End file.
